


Bunny

by ultrafreakyfangirl



Series: In which Steve Harrington is the world's fucking best dad [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Other, Steve and his daughter have a heart to heart about boys and growing up, it's cliche but whateeeeveeer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 01:18:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19780273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrafreakyfangirl/pseuds/ultrafreakyfangirl
Summary: Refer to the tags :)





	Bunny

**Author's Note:**

> As always, let me know what you think! Here is another moment in which Steve Harrington is the World's Fucking Best Dad and a dingus. Enjoy.

_Madeline. Madeline. Oh, my little Madeline._

Steve knew that this one was going to be a handful. Was it partly because she was a girl? A _daughter_? Probably. He swore though, that it also had something to do with the fact that the little rascal was born a week late and only on her terms.

He could remember the Braxton Hicks _hurting like a mother_ as Nancy gripped at his forearm each and every time. She would shut her eyes tight and force herself to stay standing, to stay grounded, because if she _moved even a muscle,_ she would _scream and scare the kids._ Christ, she would scare _him._

The point here was, was that little Baby Houseman loved to screw with her parents, had from day one. Even before. She screwed with them in the _womb._ Now that took some talent.

She was thirteen now. Growing into her features. She was a cute kid, he wouldn’t deny her of that, he wouldn’t deny Nancy of that, because their daughter looked _just_ like her. Right down to that little button nose. From the age of two, they called her _‘bunny’_ and it was a shameless and gaudy display of affection that Madeline now absolutely hated, and she blushed crimson whenever someone where to dare utter it aloud. Steve wasn’t ready for _that_ , either.

It’s funny, because just this morning, she’d come down dressed for school in a pair of jeans and some plain black t-shirt that, if anything, was a little low-cut for his taste, and the yellow rain jacket perched carefully on her shoulders, only halfway on.

Steve had noticed her glasses sticking out of the left pocket but said nothing. That was Nancy’s job, not his. Her inferiority complex was a load of bull in his eyes, because those sweet, _sophisticated_ looking dark frames were _cute._ They made her look like _a brain._ He’s only ever commented on them that one time, because she nearly threw them at him when he did. A little brash in his opinion, but _okay._

This yellow raincoat though, was a tenth birthday gift from Max (and Lucas, Lucas himself had chimed in only to be punted in the ribs). It was a bit of a joke. In summer, her hair turned a bit of a brassy color from his mom’s side, and so some people i.e. _Max Fucking Mayfield_ likened her to that little French orphan girl, Madeline, from the show, _Madeline._

And Madeline had laughed. She thought it was hilarious where most people may have been offended or at the very least have developed a slight complex. For days, she marched around the house in it, practicing this stupid, exaggerated, mildly annoying French accent. Who knew where she got the sense of humor from (no offence, Nance).

So, his point here, was that it confused him to no end as to why she still wore that raincoat but refused to be called _bunny_ or wear her glasses or go shopping with her mom (no more _Mommy_ for her, no sir). She was giving up bits of her childhood but keeping others (the French accent was gone too) and it made Steve a _little more_ than sad. Hell, it devastated him.

This was his little girl. Oh where, oh where, was his little girl going, and could he go with her?

..

Then one day, she came back. She came back to him with the salt of her tears staining her face and was pleading, pleading for him to _help her._ She called to him from the bathroom just down the hall, but when he got there the door was locked and the fan was on, so he had trouble hearing her voice, muffled and accented with the slickness of her tears. “Just break down the door if you have to.”

No way was he breaking down this door. Unless she was dying, he was not breaking down this door. And as if on cue: “I might be dying.” _Fuckin Baby Houseman._

“Maddie, I can guarantee you that you are not dying. What happened?”

Silence. Not on his watch. “Madeline.” Nothing. “Madeline Eleanor Barbara Harrington answer me this instant, young lady. Do I have to call an ambulance?”

“No.” _Finally_. “No, god, Dad, do you have to be so dramatic about everything? Aunt Robin is right. You are a dingus.”

_Wow, thanks Robin. Way to teach my kids a valuable life lesson._

“I’m going to choose to ignore that. Now what is it you need?”

“I – uh – I tried to shave my legs and I uh…cut myself pretty bad. It won’t stop bleeding.”

Steve breathed a sigh of relief. _A cut_. No problem. He could handle that. And Nancy thought he couldn’t make it on his own with three kids. Whatever. He was _killing_ it.

Less than two minutes later, he was sitting on the lip of the bathtub with his daughter, wearing a bathrobe and holding a paper towel firmly to her knee. It made sense. He knew, for some reason, that it was the most difficult spot to shave; mostly, he knew this from Robin saying things like _“is she worth shaving above the knee for”_ when he would try his hand at setting her up and it was something he never, ever, needed to hear again.

Steve looked over at his daughter, the ends of her hair dripping onto her bathrobe. She seemed lost in thought, holding the paper towel against her skin, even as the blood flow seemed to have slowed down, if not stopped completely.

“Maddie?”

She kicked her feet against the porcelain side of the tub and didn’t meet his eye. “Yeah?”

“Why were you shaving anyways? You barely have any hair at all.”

Now she looked at him, those hazel eyes that stopped his breath the moment she opened them for the first time, because it was something tangible of _his_ , practically searing a hole through his forehead. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes straight on. An embarrassed blush dotted her cheeks and neck.

“Because it’s like a million degrees outside and I want to wear a dress.”

“A dress?”

Madeline had only worn one dress in her life so far and that was to El and Mike’s wedding when she was barely a year old. So, this was some brand-new information.

“Yes. Because if you must know, I’m going for ice cream with Braeden from my English class. And before you say no, Mom already said I could before she left.”

This was also some brand-new information. And _Braeden from English class_ sounded like a complete tool. Why hadn’t Nancy told him about this boy trying to snake his way into his daughter’s life?

“Oh,” was all he said, because if he’d went with any other of his options, there would likely be yelling and some stern choice expletives. Because _fucking Christ_ something just came to him. Maybe he _was_ a dingus. “Wait, Madeline. You’re thirteen years old. Way, way, _way,_ too young to be thinking about sex.”

Now she looked at him, a glare in the forefront of her expression, the blush deepening. “What!? Gross. Who said anything about – about _that_?”

 _Shit._ Steve tried to save himself. “Well – uh – you’re shaving so I just assumed – “

A laugh crested in his chest and he had to hold it in. He was remembering one day back in high school, on his and Nancy’s first anniversary. A whole year. He had gotten to her house a little early to pick her up – and by a little early he meant like an hour (he was nervous as hell, okay? She still made him so nervous) and Karen had told him that she was still in the shower but said that he was more than welcome to wait.

So, he’d decided to watch some cartoons with Holly. Three episodes of _Bugs Bunny_ and one of _Tom and Jerry_ later, Nancy finally met him in the family room. A whole forty-five minutes after their prearranged pick up time. But he didn’t even care because seeing her in that moment, she was _so beautiful,_ the skirt she wore swishing around her ankles as she walked. _“Hey there, pretty girl,”_ he welcomed her into his arms with a kiss, lengthier than probably necessary for being in the Wheeler foyer _. “Ready to go?”_

They had decided to ditch the movie they were going to see. They went to some burger and fries joint and then back to his place and had sex for a couple hours instead. All the while, he marvelled in the smoothness of her body, how her legs seemed to go on for miles, how if he wanted to, he could run his cheek across them and it would be akin to a blanket, or how the smoothness of everywhere else was like his lips, and when he felt her skin on his mouth, he wasn’t even sure where he stopped and she began – such a tortured, bloody cliché, but he loved her, and this, doing _this_ _with her_ , so damn much.

“Never mind,” he trailed off when he saw that Madeline was still glaring. “It doesn’t matter.”

Her gaze downcasted and then she spoke again after a minute of silence. “I just wanted to feel pretty. Like – like Mom.”

“Sweetheart,” Steve gasped, pulling her closer to him. “You are. You’re _so_ pretty.”

“But not like Mom though. She’s _beautiful._ You call her _pretty girl,_ for gosh sakes, and I’m what, _bunny?_ That’s not pretty. I want someone to call _me_ _pretty girl._ ”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Braeden?”

Madeline gasped too. “No! Well, maybe. I don’t know. I just – “

“I think I get it,” Steve told her, kissing the side of her head and inhaling the smell of Nancy. “Did you use your Mom’s shampoo too?”

Suddenly and fiercely, he missed how Madeline used to smell like strawberry fields, still using that no-tears stuff that her sister Emme also used. Granted, Emme was nine and Madeline was _thirteen,_ so this was somewhat expected. Still though, it felt like a knife through his poor dad heart.

“Yeah. I just didn’t want to smell like a little kid. No offense to Emme.”

“I’m sure she’ll get over it,” Steve smiled at her. “Look, my _beautiful bunny_ , you are going to be breaking hearts soon enough because you’re your mother's twin, but please go easy on your poor old dad, yeah?”

Madeline just smiled at him. “I’m going to go get dressed now. The cut stopped bleeding.”

With that, she got up off the tub and left the room, leaving him to his thoughts.

Half an hour later, Madeline came into the kitchen where Steve was reading the paper – _shocker, right?_ – and nearly took his breath away. She had on a navy-blue dress that reached her knees, and her hair was done up in a bun – the same bun Nancy had taught her to do after hours in front of the mirror last week – and, was that his imagination, or was that lip stick on her mouth?

“ _Gloss,_ Dad,” she told him before he even had to ask. “I’ll be home by three, okay?”

Steve looked at the clock. It was only one now. What would they be doing for two hours? He shook his head. Not that. “Okay. Have fun, _pretty girl_.”

Madeline practically cringed. Not what he was expecting. Was that…the wrong thing to say?

“Not the same, Dad. But thanks for trying.”

“Okay, bunny,” he corrected with a boyish, little grin her direction. Maybe she’d be receptive this time. Maybe –

She grinned and kissed his cheek. “Better. Love you, bye!”

With that, she left the kitchen and he just watched her walk away. That navy-blue dress swishing as she walked, and there was nothing, he was realizing now, he could do to stop it.


End file.
